Black Fleet
This page is under construction. The Black Fleet, also known as the Osch Batakya in the Kanad language and frequently referred to simply as "the batakya" in general, is the military arm of the Kanad Collective and is frequently asserted to be the largest military force in the galaxy in terms of manpower and total ship tonnage. The force is divided into numerous interlinked offices which cover domestic and foreign defense measures, military intelligence, and research and development, among other roles. History In the earliest days of the Collective's expansion into interstellar space, Kanad leadership vastly underestimated the threat posed by foreign nations. At first only encountering the peaceful lirya and phirin races, the Collective was able to preserve its earlier assumption that the domestic threat of civil war between the highblood clans or an uprising of the lowbloods was a far greater concern than invasion from abroad. This changed immediately after the first encounter between kanad convoys, which were under-equipped and inexperienced, and serek pirates, who were able to disrupt kanad commerce and prevent settlement activities for several years. Word quickly spread of the overextended and vulnerable kanad territories, which became prime targets for plundering. Worse yet, further exploration had revealed the presence of the huge and threatening Sanghvi Mantle to the north, causing a general panic. If the Collective could not defend itself from mere pirates, how could it possibly prevent an invasion from a foreign power? In 1872, the High Council of the Collective passed measures to begin assembling a fleet which could successfully defend against foreign threats. Work proceeded slowly and expensively, as the kanads had to that point only equipped civilian ships with small-scale weapons and had no experience with EM shielding or large-scale plasma weaponry. It took 6 years of painful trial and error to produce the first fleet, which by this point had come to be known as the "black fleet" to differentiate it from any domestic naval forces, referred to as "blue fleets." The name was informal at first, as the official name of the program was the "Trade and Colonial Defense Initiative," according to official documents. Over time, media references to the fleet continued to use the term "black fleet" until it began to appear in Council works of legislation around a decade later. The first fleet found battling with pirates quite difficult. Despite the new ships' size and apparent strength, they were often outmaneuvered, and their captains frequently fell victim to rudimentary traps and ambushes. This only drove the point further that the Collective was in dire need of security, and so the initiative was extended indefinitely. This put a terrible strain on the nation's economy and badly undermined leadership until enough field experience and investment had occurred that the kanads began to emerge victorious against their serek opponents. Although the "golden window" to attack kanad convoys had fully closed by 1882, the pirate community continued to harass any unprotected ships they could find under the false assumption that the Collective would cease expanding its military once the original crisis had ended. In fact, the black fleet continued to expand exponentially throughout the 1880s, and the war fervor which had been long-suppressed by the Collective's government returned in force. For once, the kanads were fully united with a common desire: to wipe the serek threat out, once and for all. The kanad retribution against the serek race was brutal to the most extreme degree. It has been said that the serek species survived only because of their semi-nomadic lifestyle, as the kanads exterminated practically every permanent settlement in the eastern quadrants. It was during this campaign to hunt down the remaining serek populations that the High Council authorized the creation of a third bureau within the State Security program. Media Mechs kanadmech1.jpg|OBKK-80, the first kanad-built "land-mech" to be fielded in large numbers, during the Second Kanad-Sanghvi War kanadmech5.jpg|OBKK-84, an experimental "space-mech" which saw limit use during the Second Kanad-Sanghvi War kanadmech2.jpg|OBKK-91, a radical design leap which incorporated many lessons learned during the war as well as new technology, but which was prohibitively expensive to produce kanadmech6.jpg|OBKK-96/97, arriving just before the Collective Civil War, was the first multi-use kanad mech produced in large numbers, seeing great success in battle and proving the utility of bipedal design kanadmech4.jpg|OBKK-416A, one of two land-mechs designed for the new century, the 416A is lighter, faster, and, interestingly, more heavily armed than its counterpart to serve in a flanking cavalry role kanadmech3.jpg|OBKK-416B, the counterpart to the 416A, the 416B is more heavily armored and is better suited to prolonged battles against similarly-armed opponents. Both 416 models saw heavy combat in the Third Kanad-Sanghvi War kanadmech7.jpg|OBKK-419A, one of two space-mechs produced in contrast to land developments, the 419A plays a similar role to the 416A kanadmech8.jpg|OBKK-419B, the counterpart to 419A, the 419B plays a similar role to the 416B. Both 419 models were employed heavily in the Third Kanad-Sanghvi War Category:Military Force